As I am one of those pictured, my vote won't count. So I won't cast it!

I can tell you that hats are very important branding. They draw folks attention when you do a demo.

For instance, Bob Fleet gets a lot of attention from punters by telling 'em before they sit on his shavehorse to whittle a flower that they HAVE to wear a hat - which he provides. ( I think he may spin some line about bodgers health and safety requirements )

Great thing about this is that HE does not have to stand at his pole lathe all day if he does not want to, and it's easier to teach folk to have a go whittling a flower than to turn anything on pole lathe.

Once the punter is astride Bob's shave horse, pretty soon then out comes one camera ( e.g. of parent or friend of the punter on the shave horse) , and then soon after a crowd is attracted - with more cameras happening.

So photogenic is that hat of Bob Fleet's that Simon (in image #3 ) has used it for his avatar . Bob tells me that hat is some Amazonian flower pod.

Anyway, back to the important issue of Rob Wood's voting: you now have to cast your vote for the best hat!

As an aside I encourage any sad anorak who wants to start a discussion on "Just how do we define what is best in a hat? " to post that in the Heretic's corner. I should like to run a "Sad Anorak" session at Bodger's Ball Doncaster 2009 to discuss such vitally important themes as lathe efficiency, and now we can add Hat Best-ness to the agenda. For readers who won't attend the AGM, please feel free to contribute any Sad Anorak questions. We may even video the "Sad Anorak" AGM proceedings so you can view them later.

Sadly the hat isn't even mine, I borrowed it from my host when in New Hampshire, it was made in Australia and bought from the local fire-sale company in Peterborough (NH). Oddly it must have something intrinsically Aus about it as several people at the Greenfield Blueberry Festival assumed I was Australian. I tend to wear a hat when using the lathe to stop me leaning into the string

I was surprised to see that my avatar isn't wearing a hat as more often than not I am wearing a hat either to keep cool in the summer or warm in the winter. I don't have many pictures of me turning so I've not been able to fix it until now but here is a pic to put the record straight,

Great shot Paul. Which episode was it I guess you werem't turning were you? I've heard that Phil is very much the same off screen as he appears on screen?

cheers

Mark

Hi Mark, the filming was done at Arbeia roman fort in south shields, we put young matt one of the diggers, through 24 hours of being a roman soldier, he got hit a lot, we got him drunk in the tavern scene and stuck him on gaurd duty all night i spent about an hour with him showing him how to turn a bowl, but they didnt show it in the final program phil was also very interested in what i was doing, and yep he is a nice guy, my only claim to fame for that episode was that you could hear me laughing in the tavern scene and when i met tony robinson i couldnt resist saying EY UP BALDRICK

Gavin is nearly right.The hat Simon is wearing is a single leaf from an Amazonian palm tree, beaten out to separate the fibres.Couldn't resist it when I saw it for sale at the Edinburgh festival.

As for marketing - everyone in medieval pictures wears a hat - right up to the first world war even.If they don't have their own then I'm happy to provide one and they're all very photogenic so it soon has a few people gathered who we convert to green woodwork.

Good to start/keep the tradition that you can't be a bodger without a hat and then you look a proper bodger.